Linda Chavez commentary: New conservative debate on immigration is a good sign

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Monday March 3, 2014 6:05 AM

A new debate has arisen among prominent conservatives over whether passing an immigration
overhaul would be good or bad for Americans, with syndicated columnist George Will weighing in on
the pro-reform side and talk-show host Laura Ingraham arguing against. This is a good thing. Until
now, few prominent conservatives have been willing to venture into the pro-immigration-reform camp,
which meant that the arguments advanced in favor of reform tended to be dismissed by grassroots
conservatives. Now maybe the actual arguments will get proper attention.

Three issues are central to the debate: border security, assimilation and the economic effects
of immigration. Those on the right who oppose reform focus especially on the first two. But the
facts don’t bear out conservative hand-wringing on either one.

The border has never been so secure. The flow of illegal immigration into this country is at a
40-year low, and deportation rates are higher than they have been at any time in our history.
Conservatives can — and should — claim some credit for this. We now spend more on securing our
borders than we do on all other federal law-enforcement efforts combined. And whatever else
President Barack Obama has failed to do, he has deported more illegal immigrants than any president
before him: 2 million since he took office.

Recently, in his column, Will made the case that conservatives may be underestimating the
assimilative power of the American experience. In response, Ingraham argued that “20.8 percent of
Americans don’t speak English at home,” noting that the percentage is up about 3 points since 2000.
But her data don’t actually make the case that present-day immigrants, mostly Hispanics, are
assimilating at slower rates than previous groups, as she apparently believes.

Immigrants always have chosen to speak their mother tongue at home in the first generation.
German immigrants not only spoke German at home, but also supported German-language education in
public schools where large concentrations of German speakers lived. And early in our history, a
vote in Congress to print the Congressional Record in both English and German narrowly failed.

Today, immigrants and their children make up 25 percent of the American population. It should be
no surprise then that many of these families speak their native tongue at home, especially because
so many of these families live in multi-generation households.

What really matters — the true test of assimilation — is what happens in the second and third
generations. And here, Will is right. English is the primary language of second- and
third-generation immigrants, including Hispanics. English is the language they use primarily or
exclusively at work (93 percent, according to surveys by Pew Research), and it is the language for
news and entertainment among Hispanics, increasingly even for immigrants.

As for the economic impact of immigration, Will has all of the facts on his side. Immigration
provides a net positive increase to gross domestic product — no reputable economist disagrees; the
question is only how large. Without immigrants and a growing population, our economy will stagnate,
especially as the population ages.

Ingraham points to the economic boom of the 1980s and 1990s, ignoring the inconvenient truth
that those decades were among the highest in illegal immigration, which peaked in the mid-’90s.
Immigrants came by the millions during that period to take jobs Americans shunned in agriculture,
meat processing and the service and hospitality industries. Those jobs still go wanting, despite
high unemployment.

The majority of Republicans favor immigration reform, including a path to legalization for the
more than 11 million illegal immigrants living here now. Conservatives need an open and honest
debate on this important issue — but until recently, very few conservatives have been willing to
wade into the rough waters. As one who did so early and consistently, I welcome other conservatives
to join the growing ranks of those of us making a conservative case for the importance of reforming
our broken immigration system.

The best way to stop illegal immigration is to create a viable way for those who want to
contribute to our economy and become American to do so legally.